


[ft ) &nr-e**ts-\ 



ADDRESS 



FOR THE 



WESTMORELAND COUNTY 



gruultttral Sktutj, 



BY 



EDGAR COWAN, Esq 
»! 




w 






GREENSBURG: 

PRINTED BY E. J. KEENAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR OF THE GREENSBURG DEMOCRAT. 

1856. 



u. 



Greensburg, April 10, 1856. 

The Committee of Arrangements of the Westmoreland County 
Agricultural Society were empowered, by a Resolution of the Society, 
to procure an orator to deliver an Address at the last Annual Exhibition 
and Fair. They were very fortunate in securing the services of Edgar 
Cowan, Esq., of this Borough. The day set apart for this purpose 
proving very disagreeable, and Mr. C. being at that time somewhat 
indisposed, the Managers concluded to request Mr. Cowan to write out 
his remarks for publication. This he has very kindly consented to do; 
and the following pages will bear ample testimony to the happy manner 
in which he has acquitted himself. 

F. J. COPE, President. 



ADDRESS OF 



MP 



1. 



COWAN. 



There is very little doubt but that Agriculture was the first indus- 
trial pursuit of civilized men, or, rather, of men who tended to civilization, 
and were capable of progress. 

Civilization itself consists in that change which is constantly wrought 
upon all those things we denominate the natural and the wild. Civilized 
man himself is a forcible example of this metamorphosis. In a state of 
nature, he would be naked and defenceless, with no advantages over the 
beasts of the field, but the rather their inferior in all respects; but by 
force of taking himself into his own hand, he has become far the most 
powerful of all, and must eventually attain to an absolute and universal 
dominion over all. 

It is curious to observe how thoroughly he has got rid of his natural 
condition; scarcely a vestige of it remains either in his appearance or 
habits. His natural state was one of nakedness and uniformity of figure. 
To alter and remedy this, he has invented clothes and fashion — clothes 
to cover and hide almost totally his body, and fashion to modify them in 
every possible manner, so as to conceal his personal defects or set off his 
personal beauty. If he is too slender, he pads himself; and if too lusty* 
he girds himself more strictly. He has levied contributions from all 
the kingdoms of nature — jewelry, silks and furs — to adorn him; he has 
plundered the civet-cat and musk-ox to scent himself with their perfume; 
and, if not pleased with his complexion, he rouges it up to the desired 
tint of health and beauty. He also cuts his hair, shaves his beard, trims 
his nails, and constructs for himself artificial eyes, teeth, hair, arms, legs, 
&c, and can supply anything of himself which is worn out or lost, except 
the head and trunk. He also refuses to eat as in a state of nature, 
cooking his food, and tempering it to his palate in a thousand different 
ways; and he has sought and found beverages which differ entirely from 
any thing produced spontaneously in nature. 

Such, then, is civilized man — in his shape, gait, manner, food and 
adornments — made by himself, rather than a product of nature — the 
result, rather, of a power delegated to him by the Creator, than the work 
of the Creator himself; and he takes his rank in the scale of progress 
and advancement, just in proportion as he has subjected himself to his 
own dominion and made himself the creature of his own art. 



G AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 

All of the human family have more or less of this art, compared 
with the lower animals. It is the boundary between them, and one 
which the latter are unable to cross; for even the wisest of them practice 
no art beyond that necessary to bring forth and rear their young, and 
have not skill enough to make a fire. Still there are even yet whole 
races of men upon the confines of this dividing line, whose progress has 
been so small as to leave them without the character of having made any. 
It seems to be somewhat difficult, too, to fix precisely as to what point a 
nation or people may be said to have fairly embarked upon that career 
of industrial improvement which will ultimately entitle them to the credit 
and comforts of civilization. 

]Jut if it were proper to speculate upon this topic, it is more than 
likely, on looking back along the necessary course of things, the majority 
of observers would settle upon that period in their history when men first 
began to engage themselves in Agriculture, as the one in which they 
made the first decisive step towards civilization. Until that time, they' 
were of necessity savages, without engaging themselves in continued 
labor, and without fixed homes or definite notions of real property. 

As soon, however, as they began really to work and expend their 
labor upon the soil, the soil itself became theirs, for the reason that 
they could not have and enjoy their labor, which was clearly theirs, without 
appropriating to themselves the Earth upon which they had bestowed 
it, and which, before that time, belonged to nobody. If a man clear and 
enclose a field out of the wilderness, his right to enjoy it exclusively is 
necessary to enable him to enjoy his own ; and this right all men will 
naturally respect. If he build a house in a particular spot, that spot 
itself becomes, as it were, a part of the house; and he owns it, too, be- 
cause essential and necessary to his enjoyment of the house he has builded. 
Now, I suppose the man who cleared and enclosed the first field, first 
entertained the idea of property in that field; and, further, that finding 
this same field thus prepared would serve him for an indefinite length of 
time, he built him a house near it, which became his fixed abode and 
permanent home. And these were two great ideas to achieve, and 
wondrous things come from men owning the soil, and having fixed and 
established homes. 

At this juncture, man resolves to treat the earth just as we have 
seen that he has treated himself — re-model it from one end to the other 
— dominate and subjugate every thing upon it to his will and mastery. 
He then becomes, in truth and in fact, a Lord of Creation ; and a two- 
fold work commences entirely unknown before this time upon the earth, 
namely, the work of systematic eradication ami destruction of all that is 
spontaneous and wild, and the substitution, in its stead, of that which is 
cultivated and reclaimed. 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 



Let us observe the process by which, newly inspired, he undertakes 
to achieve the conquest of the earth. Going into the forest, he wages a 
War of extermination with every animal inhabiting it who will not submit 
to the terms he proposes to them, which are "unconditional submission 
and servitude, along with fertility in a state of slavery." "Come," says 
he, " work for me and be prolific, and I am your master first, and then 
your friend; but refuse to accept, and eternal war is between us, until 
you are exterminated." To this summons, the horse, the ox, the ass, 
the sheep, the hog, and a few others, answer favorably — come in — give 
up their liberty, and have a master's care and providence in return. 
Others, however, as the lion, the tiger, the hyena, the wolf and the zebra 
refused, and they have shared the fate threatened them; and there are 
now whole districts of a hundred miles square in which no one of them 
is to be found, and the time must at last come when the the whole will 
cease to be — not one left on the face of the earth. 

Nor do the birds fare any better at his hands. All of them, loving 
their liberty, and unwilling to exchange the wild wood of the forest and 
mountain for the comforts of the barn-yard, are doomed to consider 
themselves constantly in the presence of an enemy. 

" Man's dominion 
Has broken Nature's social union." 

And the great eagle, the vulture, the hawk and the jay are hence- 
forth fair game; while the cock, the turkey, and the whole lumbering 
tribe of scratchers, are cultivated with great care and attention, of which 
the late Shanghai and Chittegong mania was an instance. 

Insects, too, are almost all under a perpetual ban. The nest of 
the hornet, wasp and yellow jacket are beaten and stoned even by his 
children with a kind of instinctive desire for extermination. But the 
bee and the silk-worm, on the other hand, on account of their subservi- 
ency, are treated with great concern and kindness; and their lord and 
master humbles himself in consideration of silk and honey to build for 
them Cocooneries and Bee Palaces. 

Still his work of extermination is not done, and he falls, with 
yet more severity, if possible, upon the vegetables which withstand him. 
He cuts down a whole forest to the ground — old oaks, that have brooked 
the storms of a thousand years — cedars, which were mast-high before 
the birth of Christ, have no claim to longer existence in his eyes. Vines, 
shrubs, and plants are all rooted up and cast into the fire — not one left 
if he can help it — until, however desirable the ultimate object may be, 
one can hardly help thinking without some regret of such a complete 
destruction as this civilized man everywhere makes of a grand old world, 
which grew without care or culture under the very eye of God himself — 



AGRICULTUU A L A DDRESS. 



seeming to derive itself more directly from him than the things of man's 
production. 

You will observe, too, that whenever the wild animals and plants 
of a country offer such resistance to the Farmer that he cannot conquer 
or subdue them, then, of course, Civilization makes no progress. Some 
of the most fertile spots upon the earth — in the tropical countries of 
Africa and South America — on account of the rapid and enormous growth 
of the wild plants, are still in the wilderness, tenanted by savages and 
wild beasts, bidding defiance to all efforts to dominate them, in such 
places, the day has not come for their reclamation ; nor arc the men of 
progress yet strong and numerous enough to undertake their conquest, 
in the face of the troubles and difficulties they present. They will 
remain for a time as the home of those races of men and animals, whose 
extinction is not yet right and proper, because unnecessary; but when 
the population of the world shall have increased and multiplied a hund- 
red-fold by industry and the peaceful arts, then will all these domains 
be seized and appropriated in spite of all obstacles. The training of the 
African race to labor, under the direction and control of the white man 
as his master, now going on in the United States, may be ultimately 
such means, in the hands of the latter, as will enable him to triumph 
over the resistance of a tropical forest; and it is said that, even now, 
Southern Planters arc turning their eyes toward the rich valley of the 
Amazon, in the hope that, with the help of negro labor, they may be 
able to establish themselves there with both success and profit. As it 
now is, the temperate zones arc the theatres of man's greatest exertions; 
and it is there wc will go on to consider him in the work of Improve- 
ment. 

After having the "ground cleared," as the phrase is, a new and ex- 
traordinary feature again strikes us — one not before noticed in the world 
— namely, the undertaking on the part of the husbandman to say — and 
make it good — that, upon a certain acre, shall grow one kind of plant, 
upon another shall grow another kind, and so on, assuming to direct 
what shall grow and what shall not grow. Who ever dared to do this 
before ? 

In the long, long millions of years which attempt to measure the 
earth's existence, until yesterday there was no animal upon it who took 
such airs as this on itself; there was, no doubt, violence, struggle, 
and slaughter before — the strong preying upon the weak — but there was 
no attempt at systematic and universal destruction, such as wc now 
witness; no attempt to substitute, for the generations thus destroyed, 
others in their places, favorites of the conquerors. 

We have seen, however, that not only was the wild and spontaneous 
to be rooted out and destroyed, but that a new series was to bo intro- 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 9 

duced in their stead, under the control and direction of this new master 
of things, and this series includes lohcat, rye, oats, corn, apples, peaches, 
plums, &c. 

Where did they come from ? 

Because, perhaps, just about here lurks one of the most singular 
facts in natural history. And, to the question above asked, another may 
be added : When did he get the animals with which he proposes to 
stock the earth after he has exterminated the others ? 

Of all the domesticated plants, none seem to be older than man — 
none longer on the planet than he has been, if as long. There is no 
fossil man yet; nor is there any fossil apple, peach, pear, or plum, nor 
wheat, rye or corn. And the same is true of animals; no fossil horse, 
cow, sheep, or hog of existing species has been fuund, nor dog, nor cat, 
nor, indeed, "any thing which is his." He can have no permanent prop- 
erty in the races upon the earth older than himself; they will die first. 

How strangely they submit to him — these domestics of his — and 
how strangely the others resist him, and refuse all his overtures. He may 
tame and pet an individual, but that is all; the race is beyond his reach. 
He cannot get it to breed or forget the liberty of its former wild 
nature. The grouse, hatched out by the hen, follows her about the 
cabin door only until it is able to take care of itself, and then it is away 
to the dark silent woods — wild, forever wild. On the other hand, the 
eggs of the wild turkey, incubated in the same way, bring forth a happy, 
contented brood, that, with little care and kindness, never leave their 
new master, but remain, multiplying, becoming his; they are re- 
claimed. 

Why is this ? People sometimes speculate upon domesticating 
certain wild animals — the deer, the zebra, &c. — but it cannot be done; 
and for the reason that it has not yet been done. The animals that will 
domesticate, do so without effort and without difficulty of any kind. No 
history informs us of any trouble whatever in getting in the ass, the 
horse, the hog, &c; even in case of the turkey, which has been domes- 
ticated within the last 300 years, no one has kept any account of the pro- 
cess. It was as a matter of course, creating no surprise, requiring no 
attention. 

Another thing somewhat remarkable, is the fact that, whereas ani- 
mals, when wild, are of uniform color, yet, when domesticated, they be- 
come " ring-streaked and speckled" in every variety of color, and every 
form of maculation. Of these the turkey is an example — the wild one 
being always black, while we see the tame ones in the barn-yard, of al- 
most all colors, 

One more peculiarity in cultivated plants and domesticated animals 
is their very questionable ability to maintain themselves without the aid 



10 



AG K MM 1/1 I ii A L ADDRESS. 



of man, and this is not t'c least singular fact connected with the relation 
between thorn. How long would it be, for instance, before wheat would 
cease to exist if it were not cultivated? It is highly probable that in 
ten years not a grain of it would be found in the United .States; and the 
same may be said of the rest — apples, peaches, &c, the same as grain. 
Then the wild and savage varieties would take ample revenge for their 
former expulsion by returning and overrunning their tame and helpless 
rivals. And it is more than likely t'>e same fate would befall domesti- 
cated animals, if the protecting hand of man was totally withdrawn from 
them. True, the horse and ox might maintain themselves a long time, 
but it must be remembered that all animals, which are their natural en- 
emies, would very much increase in such case. Turn them out now, 
and they do well in a quasi wild state, but there is no telling how much 
they still owe to man in that condition after all, seeing that he keeps 
down the numbers of lions, tigers, bears, &e., which might at last totally 
destroy and extinguish them. 

1 suppose that all these plants and animals have been derived from 
stocks originally wild with rcclaimable natures; but that cultivation and 
domestication have developed them away from their original state so far 
as now, perhaps, to destroy all evidence of their identity with it, except 
in the case of the turkey. Whether they would be able to sustain them- 
selves long enough, if now abandoned, to enable them to revert to their 
pristine condition, is very questionable— at least in the case of most of 
them, and not certain in the case of any. 

In describing the changes wrought by man, I wish to be understood 
as distinctly referring them to civilized man, and I have a word to say 
further as to his treatment of other and uncivilized savage men. Is it 
not upon the same principle precisely as that which we have seen gov- 
erning him in his relations with wild and savage beasts — putting them 
all on the same footing? And I do not stop to discuss the right or the 
wrong of this course; it is enough to know the fact, and that it always 
has been so, and is so at the present day. The conquest and settlement 
of this country is a forcible example of it; for on the landing of our peo- 
ple, they took possession of the soil, because they found it unmingled 
with any man's labor; there were no toil and sweat marks upon it, and 
their ooinmon sense told them it was open to their appropriation, and 
their conscience sanctioned the act. Then, as to the Indians — they 
invited them in the strongest terms — viz: by destroying all possibility 
of their old mode <>t' life — to go to work and be subservient; if so, all 
would be well — if not, they must quit or be exterminated, as there can- 
not he any j'>int occupation of the soil by men who cultivate it, and by 
men who merely hunt and lish upon it. The first can only use it in the 
artificial state they induce upon it; while, to the second, it is only valuable 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 11 

because of its natural wild state. In this case, however, the Indian chose 
to resist as well as he could, and a braver man never lived; but it did 
not avail, and the consequence has been to him the same precisely as to 
the bear, the wolf, or the panther. He has retreated from the face of 
the foe, to await a slower, but not less certain extinction, in the depths 
of the Western wilderness. 

The Negro, on the other hand, is a domesticable wild man; he sub- 
mits to servitude like the horse and ox — breeds as well, if not better, in 
slavery than in freedom; and the result is, that his race is preserved and 
is multiplying rapidly. 

We observe the same law everywhere ; the civilized man will have 
his own way, and he will oblige everybody arid every thing else to con- 
form to it. He dominates and subjugates them Justin proportion to the 
distance between him and them, and graduates his authority over them 
to suit their position in the scale of development. The whole fabric of 
society is built of these gradations of slavery; nobody is perfectly free, 
but all are more or less subordinated, according to the above rule. Some- 
times this amounts to but a slight deprivation of right — as here, under 
our Constitution, an alien born is not eligible to the Presidency of the 
United States ; nor, indeed, can he enjoy the right of suffrage, except 
upon the performance of certain conditions. Sometimes the deprivation 
extends to all political and social rights, as in the case of our negro 
slaves, who are as completely chattelised as horses or oxen in all respects, 
except as to the right to life, it being a crime to murder them, while it 
is only a trespass to kill domestic animals. 

Nor do I think this regulation is one of chance, but of law ; every 
race, as such, being invariably found in the situation to which it is 
adapted with reference to the great end — Universal Civilization. 

There is another thing to be observed here; and that is, that when- 
ever men commenced agriculture, they not only conceived the notion of 
real property, but then, for the first time, was it that they devoted 
themselves to labor. Living before by hunting and fishing, which are 
both now considered rather as sport than work, or by the produce of 
their flocks, which they drove from place to place, after the fashion of 
nomadic tribes, they could have little or no idea of that continued toil 
and exertion which makes up so much of the world's capital in the shape 
of labor, and which is a position in civilized life most nearly approach- 
ing human happiness. In a natural state, man is characterized by an 
indisposition to work, and is only driven to it by necessity or force, as 
may be seen everywhere among savages; hence, labor becomes one of the 
characteristics of civilization. 

From the foregoing premises, there would appear to follow these 
conclusions : 



12 



A <i UICULTURAL ADDRESS, 



1st. All animals and plants exist in one or the other of two states, 
viz : either spontaneous and wild, or cultivated and reclaimed. 

2d. The office of agriculture is to destroy and eradicate the former, 
and substitute instead the latter upon the earth. 

3d. This undertaking gave to men their notion of real property, 
and turned their desires to fixed and permanent homes. 

4th. In order to achieve this, necessitates a perfect domination 
of the whole, which is effected by labor, evolving itself at last as power 
in its highest sense. 

5th. The end contemplated, to wit : The destruction of the wild, the 
servitude of the reclaimed, and the mastery of dominant races of men, 
serves us as a definition of the first and certainly most necessary form of 
human progress, viz : Agricultural civilization. 

In order to attain this great result, all art and science combine, and 
by their means and skill, assist in every scheme and process involved in 
it; but it must be recollected they only assist it, for, after all, human 
Tabor is the great main spring, and that upon which agriculture depends 
more than any other branch of industry. Science may instruct the 
farmer, art may teach him, but, in addition, he must have a frame inured 
to toil, iron muscles that know no weariness, and, above all, a brain 
anxious, careful and exact, which constantly revolves the panorama of 
the farm before him, watching every part with ceaseless care and provi- 
dence. 

The sluggard and the idler have no success in this pursuit — less, 
perhaps, than in any other; seeing, as we have, that its products are the 
very offspring of continued care and labor; without these, the exist- 
ence of such men is a partial relapse toward savage life. And right 
that it is so, seeing that industry is our closest approach to happiness. 
And were it not for the content and cheerfulness which, as a general 
rule, work brings with it, the toiling millions would be infinitely 
more miserable than they now are. Let an idle man be as wretched as 
he may, when he gets to work he will most likely soon find himself 
ringing in unconscious oblivion of all his troubles. Let Art and Science, 
then, be grateful that there are toiling millions thus constituted to carry 
out and perform the great tasks which they impose, and let the millions 
seek, with reverence, the aid and assistance derived from them in the 
performance of their allotted work. 

-Now, as we have seen that this great work of civilizing the earth 
was first began by Agriculture, and as we know that by far the trrcater 
part of it will yet have to be achieved in that department, it is especially 
obligatory upon the Farmer to avail himself of all that the wisdom and 
skill of his fellows engaged in the work of conquest can offer for his as- 
sistance. More for his benefit, perhaps, than of any other class, have 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 13 

the Sciences been so painfully and exactly eliminated, and the Arts so 
slowly and laboriously perfected. Looking to him for "food and raiment," 
or the material of the same, all other classes have ever felt the intimacy 
of their relations with him, and the extent of their obligations to him. 
All their labors and efforts may be said to converge upon, and for him, 
as well as themselves; and every invention of the mechanic — every 
adventure of the merchant, is made and undertaken with a view to work 
up his raw material, or carry it to its best market. Having the neces- 
saries of life in his own hand, they are willing, to a certain extent, to 
admit the superior nature of his vocation, in that he could, perhaps, con- 
trive to live without them, while without him, they certainly could not. 

And though I am free to admit that this so much desired joint 
concentration of science and skill has not yet made great progress in 
improving Agriculture — its ways and works, yet there is clear and deci- 
ded evidence that the time is near at hand when it will do so; that the 
hosts are marshaling themselves, soon to be ready for the battle. 

And here I cannot help but pause and ask you for your tribute of 
gratitude, justly due to the memory of a great and good man, lately 
deceased. I mean Professor Johnston, of Durham, England — one 
who seemed gifted by Heaven to translate the language of the Laboratory 
into that of the Field, to carry the wisdom of the pale Chemist as a gift 
to the ruddy Farmer, and to show the hidden secrets of Nature's handi- 
craft to those who might have seen but were unable to comprehend them. 
This man, by his own almost unassisted labors, has spoken to the millions 
of both hemispheres so as to be understood; he has diffused his spirit 
among them; his books are on every shelf in rural districts everywhere, 
and the corn grows the better for it, and there is more bread. 

Let him rest in peace; he has performed a task far more worthy of 
a monument than he who defended, in this age, against the most terrible 
siege the world has ever seen, or than they who have beaten down and 
demolished the great fortress of the Black Sea. 

This man's life seems to me an era, and his works a great achieve- 
ment. He has bridged the gulf between the peasant and the man of 
science ; he has taught them to commune together, and the myriad eyes 
and hands of the agricultural population are at last on the point of enga- 
ging in a career of intelligent observation and experiment, which cannot 
fail to produce a result as wonderful as the means to be used are simple. 

Now, having set boundaries to the function and office of the Farmer, 
and fixed the relations existing between him and the rest of the animate 
creation, we have thus evolved the formula expressive of his calling and 
occupation — namely, the destruction of the wild and savage, and the 
cultivation and protection of the tame and reclaimable. 

To the first, it is necessary, for a moment, to give our attention, in 



II \(i K [CULTTJ \[.\ L ADDRESS. 



order to determine whether there is such a thing as an intelligent exer- 
of this power of extermination, and whether Science furnishes any 
aid in this work. One or two examples will suffice to illustrate. Take, 
for instance, the Bot in horses. Xow, every farmer, of course, would be 
desirous of remedying this evil — one of great annoyance oftentimes — and 
a point would be gained if the mischief could be prevented. The 
Naturalist, however, in the course of his entomological studies, finding a 
Bot in the stomach of the horse, undertakes, by way of experiment, to 
d&Vedop it and see what it will come to, when it turns out to be the 
Horse Bee, after undergoing its last change! 

Here, then, is a scientific fact proved by experiment, and leading 
to very simple conclusions — as the Bee and Bot are identified, the egg 
laid by the 15ee is, of course, at the same time shown to be the origin 
of both. This egg is seen by all in tin; shape of little yellow nits, stuck 
by the Bee upon the horse; ami it is easy to scratch them off, and 
thus prevent them from getting into the animal's stomach, which they 
effect by causing an itch which the horse bites, thus carrying them down 
his throat to their proper nidus. How simple, then, is all this! The 
man of science shows the nit or egg, the farmer destroys it, and there 
need be no more Bats in horses. 

Again: The Cut-worm destroys the corn to such an extent, some- 
times, that fields have to be replanted again and again. Somebody (of 
course, so far a man of science) discovered that this Cut-worm was noth- 
ing more or less than the larva of the .May Bugj that it lived in the earth 
about plough-deep for three or lour years before it took to itself wings, 
and that during that period it was especially mischievous. The next 
thing which suggested itself was, whether this pest could not be dis- 
turbed in its winter-quarters by late ploughing, and thus expose it to 
the frost? The experiment was tried, and the result was successful. 
A field ploughed early in the wintcF is said to be freed from the Cut- 
worm, and the corn of the next year escapes from injury. 

lb nee, we see that the function of science is to assist the farmer even 
as a Destroyer. The Entomologist watches with care and perseverance 
the ways of insects, the manner by which they propagate, the food they 
most delight in, and he traces their habits in all the stages of their 
metamorphoses, lie marks their times and seasons, points them out 
when in a helpless condition, shows when a blow aimed at them will be 
most destructive, in short, he is a spy in their camp for the purpose of 
giving their great enemy, the farmer, all the information necessary to 
defeat them. II> also discovers more — that some of these insects are 
not only not injurious, but even useful, from the fact that they are the 
most terrible enemies of others which are hurtful, killing large numbers 
of them. 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 



15 



How important, then, that the Agriculturalist should not suffer all 
this labor and learning to be lost, but that he should encourage and 
practice the lessons it teaches him ; and some day all the pests that now 
scourge him, and often ravage a whole crop for him, will be as easily 
provided against as to keep the hogs out of his fields. Then he may 
expect to defend himself against the Hessian Fly, the Wire-worm, the 
Grasshoppers, and the whole tribe of little mischievous myriads now at 
his defiance, or nearly so. 

In order to understand the harmony which is beginning to exist 
between these two pursuits, I need only refer to the ''Patent Office 
Report for 1854," a portion of which is devoted to this very subject, show- 
ing what the spirit of our Government is in regard to it, and how much 
our Rulers think they can benefit the Farmer by sending off a learned man 
upon the apparently childish errand to see how the Cotton Louse, Boll 
Worm, Grain Moth, Weevils, Borers, &c, live, and move, and have their 
being. But the mission of such a man may do more to civilize the world, 
perhaps, than that of many a devout enthusiast, who, like the Hero and 
Saint, Xavier, would run to the uttermost ends of the earth to teach 
savages a new religion, when half the folks he left at home needed his 
teaching as much as the poor heathen. Nor is he behind any who truth- 
fully and humbly helps to make the light of Science shine about the 
bead of the laborer — who comes with his magic words to solve the 
darkest mysteries, and at last to make even the coarsest boor rational in 
the contemplation of the wonders of Nature. 

Although there might have been a time, and there may be now pla- 
ces in particular seasons, in which a large scientific acquaintance with 
the insect tribes would be of the first importance to the cultivator of the 
soil, yet in this country, fortunately, they are not so dangerous to any 
crop as to make us tremble for the fate of the people dependent upon 
the earth for food. Still they do great harm, and great credit is due to 
those who, in this unostentatious walk of science, enable us to prevent 
or control their ravages. 

The Naturalist, however, leaves no field unexplored ; and while he 
teaches new methods of destroying the noxious, is also busy to enlarge 
the area of useful Production, by studying the economy of plants — their 
growth and cultivation. As a Botanist, he has watched their little 
germs from the first moment of their quickening, under the influence of 
the sun's rays, up until the time when they have put on the "sear and 
yellow leaf" of old age. He has discovered a wonderful analogy between 
them and animals; that their blood circulates; that they eat, drink, 
breathe and sleep ; that they are male and female, producing by genera- 
tion; and, finally, that some of them respond to the band of cultivation, 
so that, in time, they almost change their natures 



He has suggested that 



L6 AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 

the coarse grass yEgilops is the probable ancestor of our Wheat; that the 
bitter Crab has been improved into the luscious Apple; and that from a 
dingy, useless root of Chili, human effort, despite the Church, has produced 
the Potato — that especial food of the poor in all christian countries. He 
has multiplied the petals of the Hose, Pink and Dahlia, and crossed the 
breed of his Tulips, and streaked them as, of old, Jacob did the cattle of 
Laban. He has shown how it is that, by clipping, pruning and training, 
trees and vines may be taught to assume almost any desired form and 
direction, and to concentrate their whole power upon their fruits, instead 
of wasting it on useless ramification and idle foliage. He has found out 
the secret of stall-feeding Cucumbers and Melons, of fattening Beans 
and Peas, and he has persuaded us of the manner by which Cabbages 
grow in the head, and how the Turnip (a member of the same family) 
develops itself at the root. There is hardly a trick, turn or device in 
the economy of the whole vegetable kingdom, however ingenious, that 
he is not now endeavoring to make himself the master of, for the benefit 
and profit of the Farmer, and to try to complete the dominion of civilized 
man over all. 

And away in some dingy laboratory, with the stench of Tartarus, 
enveloped in all kinds of smokes and vapors, and surrounded by acids 
and alkalies, metals and minerals, and among pots and crucibles, stands his 
friend and brother, the Chemist, reducing all substances to their ultimates, 
and determined to be at the bottom of things. He tears apart an organ- 
ism as a banker does a roll of money, telling its value in Oxygen by 
eights, its Carbon by sixes, and its Hydrogen by units, &c, as nicely as 
if he had seen it made. He weighs its nutriment, and measures its 
ashes ; tells whether it is worth cultivating or not, and discovers the 
most valuable species. To him, form, combination, or organization, 
are as nothing; they never deceive him. He strips them off like 
clothes, and delights to see the elements only when naked. He is the 
true magician, for whom the world has been so long curiously looking — 
a genuine enchanter — not a horrid witch, muttering on a blasted heath 
at midnight over an impotent hell-broth, whose charm would not have 
silenced the baying of a watch-dog, unless its filth had choked him. 
But a man of the highest reason — believing in God, not in the Devil — 
having faith, continued faith, in the uniform laws of the universe. 
He has no mystery to hide from you ; wants to teach you all he knows 
if he can, and knocks your ignorant curiosity about your ears just 
after he has kindled a fire under the water, or kindled one that burnt 
the steel blade out of your knife, but would not touch its charcoal 
handle, or, after he had lighted his lamp with an icicle, by stopping, 
in order to show you that, inste^l of its being strange that such things 
were, it would be far more strange if they were not. What great things 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS, 



17 



be has for the consolation of the Farmer ! Telling him not to be afraid ; 
that he will at last have hauled his soil wholly into the barn, and sent it off 
to foreign lands to be eaten ; telling him of a great ocean of manure forty- 
five miles deep, wrapped all about the earth like a fluid mantle, in which 
floats the great bulk of the food upon which the crops feed; telling him of 
this everlasting supply of Oxygen, Carbon, and Hydrogen, that is worth 
a whole solar system of guano and plaster of Paris to make things grow, 
and finally shows him how small a portion of the Wheat he had reaped 
really came out of the earth — how he could carry back in a three-bushel 
bag the ashes of one hundred dozen of it to the field from whence he 
had taken it and the field next year would be as rich as ever; that, after 
his crop is thoroughly dried, and all its gaseous and volatile elements 
driven off by heat or fire, there is very little left, and that the exhaustion 
suffered by the soil in losing it can be remedied at a very small cost by 
a little care and labor well bestowed. 

His next lesson is upon the soil itself, showing how its great function 
is to hold the plant firm and steady in its place, keep it of the proper 
temperature, and supply it with such liquids and solids as are proper to 
enter into its composition; that this soil consists of divers ingredients, 
mingled and blended together in such proportions, in rich lands, as to 
produce a large yield of almost any kind of crop for a season or two, but 
that, as every particular kind of plant requires more of that ingredient 
entering most largely into its texture, it is proper to rotate the crops, in 
various ways, for fear of a total exhaustion of that substance most in 
demand if the same crop was planted for many years in succession; that, 
in some cases, in unproductive soils, when a single ingredient was want- 
ing, the additiou of it operated to fertilize them, of which lime is a familiar 
example. He also shows what food this plant most delights in, and what 
that one, and from what sources it is most readily supplied if wanting. 
And, further, that there is a necessity that the surface should be well 
broken up and loosened, so that all the various substances composing it 
may have liberty among themselves, if we would have a successful result; 
that the sun, rain and air must also have a chance to play their part in 
this marvellous economy — the light and heat, to quicken the elements 
into activity, chiding them to seek their affinities — the water, to solve 
their cohesion and unbend them for the work, while the air comes on 
its light wing to carry them upwards to the mouths of the plant, millions 
of which gape in every leaf to drink in the subtile supply. 

And especially does he dwell upon Oxygen, Nature's Ariel, as the 
active spirit in the universe. How he arouses himself at the first shim- 
mer of the sun's rays as they light on the mountain tops, and begins his 
day's career of gallantry, dallying in fierce amour with all the elements, 
mingling himself here and there, and everywhere a universal favorite. 



18 AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 

In union with Hydrogen, he forms the water we drink — in mixture with 
Nitrogen, he makes the air we breathe; and to him, perhaps, we owe 
ninety-nine hundredths of all the heat whi«h tempers the earth to our 
comfort. Perhaps, too, from the same agent comes the light — many- 
tinted — revealing to us a world of beauty. Certain it is, that, in his 
union with combustible substances, heat is invariably produced as an 
effect — whether the combustion be sensible as in fire, or insensible as of 
blood in the lungs, or of iron in its rusting. It is also equally certain 
that, whenever this combustion is active and violent, as in fire and flame, 
all objects within a certain range of it are lighted up in all colors. If we 
consider him still more closely, he seems to be the tireless and vigilant 
purveyor of the whole vegetable kingdom, and the medium of its food and 
sustenance. See him take up from the dark earth his comely though black 
sweetheart, Carbon, whom he burns in his arms as Jupiter did Semele, 
before he carries her invisible up to the tops of the highest trees, to feed 
those mute objects of his care. Even down into the lungs of all animals 
does he go upon this errand, flying out on the breath laden with the 
food of plants; nay, even rising out of the flames of a fiery furnace, he 
performs the same mission of love. Never idle, he heaves the ocean in 
its incessant roar, and rides gaily among the winds in the wildest storm. 
The enemy of all inertia, he devours every thing that is not in use, 
gnawing inglorious swords in their scabbards, and eating into the plough- 
share as it rests in the furrow, or the engine that is silent in the mill. 
Nothing stops him — hardly anything that he does not manage to change 
into some new form. A Proteus himself, he may be found assuming all 
forms in combination, as well as without form in a diffused state. Per- 
sonify him, and all the gods of ancient mythology will not furnish analo- 
gies enough to compare with him. His exploits are far more wonderful 
than all of them put together; and the miracles wrought by a whole 
calendar of fabled Saints, are not a thousandth part as extraordinary as 
those he is working daily in and around us throughout the whole domain 
of nature. 

Nor is he the only one of the mysterious agents worthy of mention 
which the Chemist has introduced to us; and there are some things, per- 
haps, quite as wonderful in the multifarious uses which this same Car- 
bon serves in the economy of nature — glittering upon the brow of beauty, 
when chrystalized in the diamond, and set in the crowns of Kings as 
their highest and most costly ornament, dug out of the earth as coal by the 
sooty miners, and moving as fuel that steam machinery which is employed 
in a world of manufactures, and in driving the great ships of commerce 
to and fro across the widest oceans, regardless of wind or tide. 

Besides this, we have ^cvn that it is the staple food of vegetables, and 
thenee, of course, of animals, entering more abundantly into their com- 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 



19 



position than any other element, that part of it in the blood being burnt 
as fuel in the lungs just as coals are burned in a stove, thus generating 
power in the animal engine. We have also seen, in its chemical union 
with Oxygen, that it is one of the great sources of heat on the earth, this 
union being excited and brought about by the presence of the sun, fric- 
tion, &c. Of it is built up the tall cedar, the stout oak, as well as the 
humble leek and the tender delicate blades of grass. It is in the green 
of the leaf, and in the glow of the flower — in the brown of the berry, 
and the blush of the apple. Everywhere, in all the varied forms of 
living beauty, is this simple, common, every-day element to be found 
playing a most important part. Another consolation we have is, that eve- 
ry bushel of coal — -every perch of limestone or cord of wood that is burned, 
liberates Carbon and contributes its share towards enriching the soil and 
atmosphere with this constituent principle of the food of vegetables. 

But it is not only men of science who are laboring for the advantage 
of the farmer, and striving to lighten his toil; the mechanic and engi- 
neer are also at work. The former improves his ploughs and other im- 
plements, inventing for him lately many ingenious contrivances to do his 
work more easily and better than heretofore, such as cultivators, drills, 
threshers, reapers, mowers, &c, all of which promise much for his future 
progress. 

The Engineer, too, is leveling the hills and mountains, and con- 
structing for him Railroads, by which he is, as it were by magic, lifted, 
farm and all, and set down in close proximity to the great markets of the 
country, so that now a Westmoreland County farmer is really as near to 
Philadelphia as his neighbor of Bucks County was twenty years ago, 
and thus, to a great extent, put on the same footing with those who 
formerly enjoyed the advantage of a more favored locality. 

There is the Printer, too, besides embodying in Books information 
important to him on all subjects, keeps peppering him week after week 
with hot shot through the newspaper, two or three columns of which 
are generally devoted to that purpose, so that, if a good thing is 
found out in any part of the country, it is immediately sent off in all 
directions by post, until every man who hath eyes to see and ears to hear 
must be stupid, indeed, if he cannot avail himself of it within a few days 
after it is made public. 

Along with the means to which I have just alluded, must be added 
your own, and similar associations, called "Agricultural Societies," 
which are well calculated to stimulate those engaged in them to make 
efforts to excel. Many a man thus moved, will discover within himself 
latent powers and hidden forces, the development of which leads him to 
success and fortune, and which, without the encouragement you offer 
him, had perhaps remained undiscovered by him for a lifetime. 



20 AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 

Your Society, by frequently congregating its members together 
for a common purpose, will instruct them by the increased means of 
information it affords — will arouse them by the emulation it excites, and 
reward the more successful by the distinction it confers. Small results 
may greet you at first, but as the years go by benefits will be multiplied 
in a continually increasing ratio, until, at length, you may be the means 
of changing the whole face of the country, and, to some extent, even its 
population, for the better, and you will have your reward — the earth icill 
yield more bread. 

It would be also well that you remember, since you are entrusted by 
Heaven with the great duty of adapting the whole domain of animal and 
vegetable life to a new and much higher phase of existence than here- 
tofore, that you ought to qualify yourselves for the task, so that, when 
you come to render an account of your trust to the great Master of things, 
you may not be chargeable with negligence, or found in arrear with your 
reckoning. It must surely be a great mission, when it requires you, 
with one hand, to wield the sword of the Destroying Angel against so 
many living beings — God's creatures like yourselves; but it assumes a 
still higher form, when, with the other, you are to kindle the sacred fire 
of Prometheus, and animate a world of industry and peace, rising by your 
exertions over the ruins of the old. 

The industry and polish of Ceres will expel the uncouth Pan, with 
his rude and idle satyrs, and the harvest hymn of universal culture be 
heard everywhere resounding instead of the battle song of contending 
savages. To such a consummation, all is slowly, yet surely, tending; 
and he who feels himself uuable to sympathize with this onward move- 
ment, may set himself down as doomed to that destruction which, of 
necessity, awaits all that which yet savors of the natural and loild. 



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